Fic: OMG Dinosaurs! (Wizards of Waverly Place, Justin/Alex)

[amathela]

Title: OMG Dinosaurs!
Fandom: Wizards of Waverly Place
Pairing(s): Justin/Alex
Word Count: 3137
Rating: PG

Summary: Alex magically brings some dinosaurs to life, oops! Which is both awesome and terrifying, at least if you're Justin.

Notes: Written for noor_us_sabah for yuletide.


"Some have suggested that ornithomimus' large eye sockets suggest it was nocturnal, though others have -"

"I'm bored," Alex says. A little louder than she meant to, if the glare the museum guide shoots her is any indication, but oh, well. You can't win them all. "Let's go rearrange things in the gift shop."

Harper turns to her with a frown that almost matches the guide's. "Alex, you can't just sneak off during a tour."

"Sure I can," she says. "It's really easy, watch."

"No!" Harper says, grabbing her arm before she can leave. "I mean, you shouldn't just sneak off from the tour."

"Uh huh," Alex says. "And your point is?"

"My point is that it's wrong," Harper says. And then, rolling her eyes, "And if you leave, you won't be able to do the pop quiz tomorrow."

"Even more reason to go," Alex says. She doesn't get why Harper's so mad; if it were a real pop quiz, they wouldn't have been told about it in advance. (By which she means, early enough to fake a convincing reason why she can't go to class.) "Come on, it'll be fun."

But Harper just frowns, crossing her arms, and Alex sighs. Obviously Harper's in one of her 'not putting up with Alex breaking the rules and having any fun' moods. Alex hates those.

"I'm staying," Harper says.

"Okay," Alex says. And then, as the tour guide and the rest of the class round the corner up ahead, "Have fun, bye!"

She can hear Harper whisper-yelling something at her as she walks away, but it's probably something boring about rules and responsibility and respecting authority figures and not failing out of school, so Alex ignores her, and Harper doesn't follow. Which is fine; Alex is sure there's got to be something fun she can do in this whole stupid building.

Like, ooh, a do not touch sign! Now they're talking. She looks up, waves at the security camera in the corner she's pretty sure isn't even real because, duh, it's a public museum, and reaches out a hand to touch one of the scary-looking claws closest to her. And waits.

Yep, that's what she thought. No consequences.

She pulls off her scarf, and takes a step closer to wrap it around the dinosaur's neck. "There," she says, proud of her handiwork. "Now you'll survive the ice age."

And then she laughs, because, ha, ice age.

She's about to put her jacket on it, too, when someone clears their throat behind her, and she turns around, already pretty sure what to expect. It's a pretty distinctive throat-clearing.

"Justin," she says. Of course.

"Alex," he says. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," she says, shoving her jacket behind her back. "What are you doing?"

"Preventing you from destroying something?"

Well, obviously. "No, I mean, why are you even here? You're not even in this class."

"I'm volunteering," he says. "For extra credit?"

Ugh, of course he is. "Right. And you decided to come bother me because ..?"

"Um, because I knew you were up to something. Which you clearly are."

"I don't know what you're …" she says, and then turns, sees her scarf still on the dinosaur out of the corner of her eye. "That scarf could belong to anybody."

"Then how come I saw you put it on there?"

"How?" she asks.

He points up at the corner. "The security cameras."

"Those don't even work." She hopes. Otherwise, wow, her last five field trips are going to come back to haunt her.

"They do for me," he says. And then, more smugly, "I charmed them."

"Of course you did."

"Well, after I knew you were coming …"

"What is it exactly you think I'm going to do?" she asks. "Wave my wand and say, 'bring all these dinosaurs to life?'"

Which, of course, she demonstrates by waving her wand. Naturally.

Unfortunately.

"Alex," Justin says, a note of panic in his voice.

Alex rolls her eyes. "What? That's not even a real spell."

"Are you sure about that?" he asks. "Because you might want to be sure about that."

"Of course I'm -" And then she feels something, not at all pleasant, breathing down her neck. Oh, crap. She turns around, slowly, dreading what she's about to see, and comes face to face with a living, breathing dinosaur. Wearing a really attractive scarf.

"Okay," she says. "Maybe not a hundred percent sure."

"Alex!"

"It's okay," she says, taking a step backwards, not taking her eyes off the dinosaur. If she looks it in the eyes, it won't attack her, right? Or is that pigeons? "I can fix this. Dinosaurs be dead again!"

Nothing. Of course it's a spell when she doesn't want it to be, and isn't one when she does.

"Alex." Justin's voice is lower, now, warning.

"Just a sec," she says. "Dinosaurs go to sleep! Dinosaurs aren't real! Dinosaurs fossils!"

"Alex," he says again, louder. "Run!"

Yeah, okay. Good plan. Alex spins, wand still in hand, and barrels past Justin, grabbing his arm on the way past. Up ahead, one of the other dinosaur exhibits is conspicuously empty, and she cringes. She's pretty sure Harper, wherever she is, is probably blaming her for this right now.

And then she hears screaming, and, okay, it's also possible that Harper's just running for her life.

Which they're also doing. At least until Justin stops short, staring at a dinosaur with its back to them.

"Amazing," he says. "They really did have feathers."

"Yeah," she says. "That's really great. I'll be so happy about that while it's eating my face off."

"Right," he says. "So, more running?"

"More running," she agrees.

Which seems to work well enough, at least for a while. Until they hear a roar from up ahead - close up ahead - and Alex stops, looking at Justin accusingly.

"So," she says. "Where exactly are we running to?"

"Um," Justin says. "You see, I was just kind of following my usual route, and -"

"Justin," she says.

"It's the T-Rex exhibit," he says finally.

Oh, that's fan-fricking-tastic. Alex might have brought a whole bunch of dinosaurs to life, but at least she didn't lead them right to a tyrannosaurus freaking rex.

"Oh, good," she says sarcastically. "I always wanted to live in Jurassic Park."

"Actually," he says, "that's a popular misconception. You see, tyrannosaurus rex actually lived in the Cretaceous -"

"Justin," she snaps. "Not the time."

"Right," he says. "Now's probably the time for the panicking and the dying horribly."

"Has anyone ever told you you're excellent in a crisis?"

"You want excellent?" he asks, pulling out his wand. "How about this? Museum floorplan, one I know, give us somewhere else to go."

And then the walls kind of … shift around them, and when everything stops spinning, they're standing somewhere else entirely.

"Okay," she says. "What the hell was that?"

"A spell," he says. "You know, one I actually meant to do?"

"Funny," she says. "Let's keep pointing out what a screw-up Alex is instead of finding a way to get us out of this."

He gestures around them. "Did I or did I not get us out of this?"

"Yeah," she says, as she spots movement behind him. "I'm going with not."

Grabbing him, she dives for a nearby exhibit - not a dinosaur exhibit, thank god - and crawls underneath it, peering out. She can't see much, but what she can see is blue and black and purple and sways when the dinosaur moves.

"Hey," she says. "It's horny thomas." And he's still got her scarf.

"Ornithomimus," Justin corrects her. Like that's what's important right now, really. "And actually, that's a dromiceiomimus. It's an interesting story, really -"

"Is it?" she hisses. "Because what I think is interesting is that it's about to eat us."

"Okay," he says. "It's okay. I can handle this."

"Let me," she says. "Electric lights, say goodnight!" Suddenly, the room they're in is plunged into near-darkness, and Alex grins. "See? I can fix things, too."

"Yeah, that's great. The only problem is, dromiceiomimus was nocturnal."

"Which means?"

And then there's that disgusting breath again, this time on her cheek, and Justin says, "Which means it can see in the dark."

Oh. Yeah, okay, that's not good.

Justin scrambles out first on the other side of the exhibit, away from the dummy sea omnibus or whatever, and reaches back to help Alex, his hand clasping hers, pulling her out just as she's sure she can hear jaws snap together behind her. As she gets to her feet she collapses against him, and for a second, it knocks the breath out of her, head spinning as she tries to get her bearings. She presses a hand to his chest, straining to make him out in the dark, and she can feel his heart beating underneath her palm, heavier than usual.

"Back up slowly," he whispers, leaning forward until his mouth is almost pressed against her ear, and she nods, not letting go of him. And then she stumbles over something, an exhibit or something else, and when she turns around, she can't see him any more.

"Justin?" she hisses, trying to keep her voice low, trying not to panic. They're just trapped in the dark in a strange part of the museum with a dinosaur who wants to eat them, no big deal. "Justin!"

And then she hears a shout - his - and starts running in that direction, ignoring anything that gets in her way. After the third time she almost trips, though, she swears and waves her wand, muttering, "museum illuminatum."

At first, she still can't see anything, blinking rapidly to adjust to the suddenly too-bright light. And then when she can see, it isn't exactly encouraging. Because what she can see is, well, nothing.

No dinosaur. And no Justin.

She moves quickly, back in the direction she thinks Justin was headed, trying to listen for roaring or screaming or whatever else might tell her which way they went, mostly hoping she doesn't hear anything. And then she does, and, yep, it's screaming, high-pitched and girly. So, definitely Justin.

She runs in that direction, wand out, and rounds the corner just in time to see the dinosaur circling Justin, looking hungry. She thinks it looks hungry, at least; dinosaur faces aren't exactly super expressive. Maybe it's just angry. She probably would be, too, if one day she was a skeleton and the next she was being chased around by a bunch of kids.

So, maybe her fault. A little.

"Grab the scarf!" she yells, and Justin glances at her, giving the dinosaur a chance to lunge at him, knocking him off balance. It doesn't try to eat him, though, which is good, but it doesn't back off, either.

"Come on," she mutters, looking around them. They're in the Egyptian wing, she thinks, a scarily fake-looking statue of a mummy in the corner, and - okay, so mummies don't usually go super well for her, but how much worse can it get?

"Murrieta animata," she shouts, pointing her wand at it, and after a second, the mummy lowers its arms, turning to look at her. (She thinks. It's kind of hard to tell underneath all the gross bandages.) "Well?" she asks. "What are you waiting for? Attack the dinosaur."

She's not quite sure if that was a spell or not, but the mummy moves anyway, stumbling towards the dinosaur that's still menacing Justin, and Alex is suddenly really, really angry that she gave it her scarf. If anybody should be wearing that scarf and trying to kill her brother, she's pretty sure it should be her.

"You're welcome," she says as the mummy attacks the dinosaur, distracting it long enough for Justin to get away.

"You made a mummy!" he says. "Are you crazy?"

Well, as far as 'thank you's go, that really isn't one. But whatever, she totally saved the day.

Or, at least she temporarily saved the day. Until the mummy defeats the dinosaur, and turns to them instead.

"Uh oh," she says.

"Undo it!" Justin says.

"I'm trying," she says. "Wait, I know this one! Um -"

"Garibay immobilitay," Justin says before she can, waving his wand just as the mummy descends on them, and it freezes in place, just as fake as it was a few minutes ago. And then he turns to Alex and says, "You're welcome."

Whatever. She would have remembered the spell eventually. And besides, it wasn't like he was having a lot of luck fighting the dinosaur on his own. Maybe she'll just try to stay away from mummies in the future.

(Okay, like staying away from trouble has ever worked for her. But she can try, at least.)

"Now," he says, we just have to try to find a way to reverse the spell and hope we don't run into -"

"The T-Rex," she says.

"Exactly."

"No," she says. "The T-Rex."

Justin freezes in place as Alex backs away, and then turns, slowly, until the T-Rex's lowered head is inches away from his.

"Justin," she says. Not like she has anything to go with that, just, you know. He needs to move, to run away, to do something instead of just standing there.

He raises his wand, but before he can do anything with it, the T-Rex turns, knocking the wand out of Justin's hand with its tail. It charges forward and Justin runs, dodging out of the way just in time to avoid snapping teeth, but he can't avoid a second swipe of its tail; it hits him, hard, square in the chest, and he goes flying backwards, hitting a nearby display with a dull thud.

Trying to stay calm, struggling not to look over at Justin, to see if he's okay, Alex waves her own wand, shouting, "dinosaurus extinctus!"

And then, as suddenly as it came to life, the dinosaur is gone, crashing into a pile of bones on the floor.

Alex ignores them, rushing over to Justin. He's struggling to his feet as she reaches him, and she can't even think about anything except that he's alive. She rushes forward to meet him, throwing her arms around him, kissing him full on the mouth. It's supposed to be an 'I'm so glad you're not dead' kiss, but he pulls her closer and doesn't let go, his lips parting against hers, and she - kind of goes with it? Which is to say, she kisses him back, slowly at first, then pressing closer, her hands raking through the hair at the base of his neck, definitely not letting a soft moan escape her as his fingers dig into her hips, curling underneath the waistband of her jeans.

She almost jumps back a few minutes later when a loud wailing suddenly interrupts them; the museum's security, she's guessing. Which is probably for the best. Almost definitely.

"Um," she says, shoving her hands self-consciously in her pocket. She really, really did not mean for that to happen. She's pretty sure.

And she has no idea if Justin did either, or if maybe he's about to totally freak out on her, but what he says is, "You're happy I'm alive."

"What?" she asks, trying to regroup. And then, instinctively, "No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are," he says. "You hugged me. You're glad I'm not dead."

"It was an accident," she says, and he raises an eyebrow.

"Really?," he asks. He takes a step closer, sliding a hand down her arm until his fingers entwine with hers, his expression growing serious. "Alex -"

"Fine," she says, to stop whatever he's about to say next. "Maybe I'm happy you're alive. But don't go thinking this changes anything."

He gins at her, then, almost harder than he ever has, and Alex doesn't even understand what's such a big deal. So she doesn't want him to be dead, whatever. Maybe she just doesn't want to explain to their parents how she got him killed by a dinosaur attack.

But he's still holding her hand, and that's okay, too, maybe. Whatever. She's not Justin, she isn't going to overthink this.

(But, okay, this bit doesn't exactly suck. Maybe not enough to make up for the whole part where dinosaurs nearly ate them alive, but, you know. Almost.)

"And you're welcome," she says. "Again."

"What?" he asks. "What are you talking about?"

"Um, the part where I totally saved you from the T-Rex who thought you were dinner?"

"You mean, the T-Rex you created in the first place?"

Pfft, technicalities. "I still saved your butt," she says. "Twice. Which means you owe me."

"Is that right?" he asks, and there's a gleam in his eye that sends a thrill down her spine, one she tries (mostly unsuccessfully) to ignore.

"Yep," she says. "Let's see, maybe I'll make you do all my chores for a month."

"At least that way they'd get done."

"Hey," she says, even though, okay, it's a fair point. "Or maybe I'll make you do all my homework for a week."

"Yeah, like anybody would believe it was yours."

"Or maybe I'll just make you sit in Max's room for an hour."

"Hey, that's cruel and unusual punishment."

So true. Which is why she suggested it, obviously. Besides, she's pretty sure she can figure out a better way to make him pay her back.

And right now, she might have a bit of explaining to do. Especially to Harper.

"I'll tell you what," she says. "You clean up this whole dinosaur mess, and we'll call it even."

"Well, it wouldn't be the first time I've cleaned up one of your messes."

"Hey," she says, squeezing his hand. "You love it."

"Yeah," he says, looking at her. "I do."

And that's - well. Yeah, okay. She can work with that.

"But most of all," she says, "I never want to see another dinosaur again."

"So I'm going to have to get rid of some stuff in my room?"

"Some stuff?" she asks, raising an eyebrow. More like an entire wall display of dinosaur toys fighting astronauts, which, come on, even she knows would never even happen.

"A perfectly normal amount of stuff."

Yeah, whatever. But she ignores the wave of heat that rushes over her as she says, "And don't even think I'm coming near your bed until you change those sheets."

"Those are limited edition Captain Jim Bob Sherwood sheets."

"They're made for seven year olds."

"The packaging said all ages."

"And you're going to have to stop reading the packaging."

He moves forward, then, hooking a finger through one of her belt loops and tugging her a little closer. "Then how will I know what's appropriate?"

Wow, yeah. That is so not something she's qualified to judge.

"I guess you're just going to have to trust me on it," she says, and kisses him again.